Month / May 2020

The European Commission’s proposal for a ‘next generation’ recovery fund is an important step in forging a common response to the economic challenges that will follow in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Together with fiscal efforts at the national level, this fund should add useful stimulus to European economic performance. What remains to be seen is how the negotiations will play out within the European Council. There is reason for optimism but also reason for caution in that respect.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank remains the primary source of macroeconomic stabilization. When the ECB’s Governing Council meets on 4 June, we should expect to see them add more stimulus of their own into the mix. The pandemic emergency purchase program will need to be larger. The Governing Council may need to adjust some of its other instruments as well. But Europe’s heads of state and government should be under no illusion that such actions will solve Europe’s macroeconomic problems or that they take any pressure off the European Council in agreeing on an ambitious recovery fund. The ECB can buy more time, but it cannot be the only game in town. And, as we have seen, even buying time is getting expensive. Increasingly, the Governing Council finds itself in situations where it is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t: The ECB is a hostage to the effects of this crisis, to the actions of the European Council, and to the economic and political consequences of its own policy response – both real and imagined.

Bucharest is not an historic city, but it is rich in history. The distinction turns out to be important both for our understanding of Romania, politics, and historiography more generally. Emanuela Grama uses the politics that surrounded the Old Town of Bucharest over the past century to force us to reconsider the constitution of the state, the relationship between identity and ideology, and the balance in historical development between grand narratives and incremental change. Moreover, she does all this by demonstrating that the study of history and the stuff of history are rarely if ever the same.

Has Europe has arrived at its Hamiltonian moment? That may not be the right question. Assuming these kinds of comparisons make sense, Europeans might want to focus more on Madison – and particularly his Federalist 10. Madison leads off the essay arguing: ‘AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.’ Translated out of 18th Century political jargon, Madison insists on the virtues of political pluralism as opposed to the vices associated with fixed political interests and coalitions; he also makes the case for a constitutional arrangement that balances the distinctiveness of individual states with the need for harmony across the union. That insight demands attention as Europe seems ever more deeply divided over how to respond to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The recent decision by the German Constitutional Court has triggered an avalanche of commentary about the primacy of European law and about the political independence of the European Central Bank. These are important issues for debate. I am persuaded by colleagues like R. Daniel Kelemen, for example, that you cannot have a ‘rule of law’ in Europe without a clear hierarchy of legal interpretation. Hence, while I can see the point being made by the German constitutional court about its obligations to uphold the constitutional rights of German citizens, I can also see why the European Court of Justice would insist on having the last word in any assessment of whether a European institution acted within its European mandate.

By contrast, the debate about the political independence of the ECB has taken a detour. The focus lies too narrowly on whether complying with the German court would or would not violate the ECB’s political independence given the wording of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks. That focus is too legal and in any event crabwalks back into the debate about the primacy of European law. The focus should lie on why the ECB is politically independent instead. Along the way, we should ask whether that independence is necessary for the ECB to forge an effective response to the current economic crisis.

There is a big conversation brewing about the deepening East-West divide in the European Union. Much of this conversation started long before the pandemic. Social scientists like R. Daniel Kelemen have been worried for a long time now about the diverging trajectories in democratic institutions and about the possible roles that European Union (EU) institutions may have played in supporting that evolution. More recent scholarship shows how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated that tension. This raises questions about whether such developments were always likely to happen, and about how we can better understand East-West relations in Europe. Fortunately, three brilliant new books promise to help in that understanding. The first, by Larry Wolff, examines the role of Woodrow Wilson in help shaping the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. The second, by John Connelly, explores the evolution of East European nationalism. The third, by Lenka Bustikova, examines the problem of extreme right mobilization. The conclusion I take away from these books is that there are important political dynamics at work in Eastern Europe that need deeper understanding; it is not that East and West are fundamentally different. We can learn a lot from the study of Eastern Europe as we struggle to interpret developments elsewhere as well – Western Europe very much included.

The study of Europe has never been more active. Whether the conversation turns to populism, Brexit, immigration, or austerity, Europe is at the forefront. The same is true when scholars debate the future of democracy, the stability of NATO, efforts to combat climate change, or the struggle to maintain a multilateral world order. Europe may be the ‘old’ continent, but it is a constant source of interest, inspiration, innovation, insight, and hope for the future.

A new ruling by Germany’s constitutional court, which is intended to protect the German people from a mistaken policy implemented at the European level, has placed Germany’s government and its parliament in an impossible situation.